Fight Finance

Question 74  WACC, capital structure, CAPM

A firm's weighted average cost of capital before tax (##r_\text{WACC before tax}##) would increase due to:

(a) The firm issuing more debt and using the proceeds to repurchase stock.

(b) The firm issuing more equity and using the proceeds to pay off debt holders.

(c) The firm's industry becoming more systematically risky, for example if it was a mining company whose performance became more sensitive to countries' GDP growth, so the correlation of the firm's returns with the market was higher.

(d) The firm's industry becoming less systematically risky, for example if it was a child care centre and the government announced higher subsidies for parents using child care centres, so the correlation of the firm's returns with the market was lower.

(e) None of the above.

Question 119  market efficiency, fundamental analysis, joint hypothesis problem

Your friend claims that by reading 'The Economist' magazine's economic news articles, she can identify shares that will have positive abnormal expected returns over the next 2 years. Assuming that her claim is true, which statement(s) are correct?

(i) Weak form market efficiency is broken.

(ii) Semi-strong form market efficiency is broken.

(iii) Strong form market efficiency is broken.

(iv) The asset pricing model used to measure the abnormal returns (such as the CAPM) is either wrong (mis-specification error) or is measured using the wrong inputs (data errors) so the returns may not be abnormal but rather fair for the level of risk.

Select the most correct response:

(a) Only (iii) is true.

(b) Only (ii) and (iii) are true.

(c) Only (i), (ii) and (iii) are true.

(d) Either (ii) and (iii) are true, or (iv) is true, or (ii), (iii) and (iv) are true.

(e) Either (i), (ii) and (iii) are true, or (iv) is true, or all are true.

Question 170  NPV, DDM

A stock is expected to pay the following dividends:

Cash Flows of a Stock
Time (yrs)	0	1	2	3	4	...
Dividend ($)	8	8	8	20	8	...

After year 4, the dividend will grow in perpetuity at 4% pa. The required return on the stock is 10% pa. Both the growth rate and required return are given as effective annual rates. Note that the $8 dividend at time zero is about to be paid tonight.

What will be the price of the stock in 5 years (t = 5), just after the dividend at that time has been paid?

(a) 166.79

(b) 149.98

(c) 144.21

(d) 138.67

(e) 128.21

Question 490  expected and historical returns, accounting ratio

Which of the following is NOT a synonym of 'required return'?

(a) total required yield

(b) cost of capital

(c) discount rate

(d) opportunity cost of capital

(e) accounting rate of return

Question 580  price gains and returns over time, time calculation, effective rate

How many years will it take for an asset's price to quadruple (be four times as big, say from $1 to $4) if the price grows by 15% pa?

(a) 1.3685 years

(b) 3.4783 years

(c) 4.4808 years

(d) 9.919 years

(e) 11.5156 years

Question 619  CFFA

To value a business's assets, the free cash flow of the firm (FCFF, also called CFFA) needs to be calculated. This requires figures from the firm's income statement and balance sheet. For what figures is the balance sheet needed? Note that the balance sheet is sometimes also called the statement of financial position.

(a) Net income, depreciation and interest expense.

(b) Depreciation and capital expenditure.

(c) Current assets, current liabilities and cost of goods sold (COGS).

(d) Current assets, current liabilities and capital expenditure.

(e) Current assets, current liabilities and depreciation expense.

Question 716  return distribution

The below three graphs show probability density functions (PDF) of three different random variables Red, Green and Blue.

Which of the below statements is NOT correct?

(a)##-1 < \text{Red} < \infty## if Red is log-normally distributed.

(b) ##-2 < \text{Green} < 2## if Green is normally distributed.

(c) ##0 < \text{Blue} < \infty## if Blue is log-normally distributed.

(d) If the Green distribution is normal, then the mode = median = mean.

(e) If the Red and Blue distributions are log-normal, then the mode < median < mean.

Question 878  foreign exchange rate, American and European terms

If the Australian dollar quote of 0.8 USD per AUD suddenly falls to 0.7 USD per AUD, has the Australian dollar or against the US dollar?

Question 907  continuously compounding rate, return types, return distribution, price gains and returns over time

For an asset's price to double from say $1 to $2 in one year, what must its continuously compounded return ##(r_{CC})## be? If the price now is ##P_0## and the price in one year is ##P_1## then the continuously compounded return over the next year is:

###r_\text{CC annual} = \ln{\left[ \dfrac{P_1}{P_0} \right]} = \text{LGDR}_\text{annual}###

(a) 0%

(b) 30.102999566%

(c) 69.314718056%

(d) 100%

(e) 200%

Question 929  standard error, mean and median returns, mode return, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate

The arithmetic average continuously compounded or log gross discrete return (AALGDR) on the ASX200 accumulation index over the 24 years from 31 Dec 1992 to 31 Dec 2016 is 9.49% pa.

The arithmetic standard deviation (SDLGDR) is 16.92 percentage points pa.

Assume that the data are sample statistics, not population statistics. Assume that the log gross discrete returns are normally distributed.

What is the standard error of your estimate of the sample ASX200 accumulation index arithmetic average log gross discrete return (AALGDR) over the 24 years from 1992 to 2016?

(a) 43.9125 percentage points per annum.

(b) 3.4538 percentage points per annum.

(c) 1.9371 percentage points per annum.

(d) 0.705 percentage points per annum.

(e) 0.3954 percentage points per annum.